The dragonfly effect

Even if my drawing is a dragonfly, I keep seeing butterflies all around. One of them, a white butterfly, flew inside the room where I am right now. I see it because it exists. The butterfly effect is just a myth, two words like many others. If you don’t believe in it.

The butterfly effect, in real lives, means nothing. But it means everything at the same time, because every living being who happens to be human knows what it means. Just because of that.

This is just my demonstration about the power of ONE word. Butterfly.

A dragonfly means something different: is resilience, to me.

My own interpretation of a dragonfly, of course.

The dragonfly I’m writing about, in fact, is the one in my picture. The picture I took to hide my real face. You can see it, right now. My dragonfly is surrounded by fear, which in my painting is the color black. It has nothing to do with the color black: if a word is just a word, a color is just a color.

But this is true only if you are drawing, right now.

If I TELL you the reason why I chose black to represent fear, black means something different to you too. My choice: in nature, black is darkness. The night. Black happens when the light is not there. Are you still afraid of darkness?

The dragonfly effect, to me, means Art is necessary, as is black. And beautiful, as is blue. When I draw, as when I write, the first draft is never perfect. Drawing and writing are two shades of Art. As green is just green, or the Green Revolution already telling its own story.

The reason behind my truth is just this: it’s mine.

I share it with everyone, even when I don’t want to do it. But why?

Because inspiration comes from the Muse. When you’re writing a novel (my second draft is a wonderful thing to experience, while I’m doing it) the Muse is inconsistent and redundant, but never tendencious. The Muse loves details: shows, doesn’t tell.

I’m blind, and I’m walking through the looking glass.

Art is inevitable, since there are the Artists. That’s why I love Art so much, and at the same time, it’s the whole reason behind the existence of every Artist: life is inevitable, while you’re living it.

You don’t need to love the Artist behind an opera: Picasso’s Guernica.

I love the Guernica, but I don’t love Picasso: I can’t.

He’s in the memory of the past, existing before my present moment.

He was. I am.

We know there were Artists before us, and the memory they leave behind is not themselves: are their operas. Their actions.

We, the Writers, feel blessed. Not because we know the truth… but because we’re able to describe a dawn, calling it Saudade, and make you experience it while you’re with yourself, reading it. That’s my truth. And Saudade is just a beautiful word.

Hope, for an Artist, means one day you’ll die… but maybe, someone will always remember you. So, let’s hope.

Don’t be thankful to the writers, beware of us: we kill our darlings because it’s part of the process. Art is magic, after all, and writing is telepathy.